HIGH LORD ZEN

I seem to have found myself at the center of a controversy. Although I don’t know how this will be distributed, there will be a final issue. The newly elected Hughes E-board seems to have something against me, and have found it in there hearts to personally insult me in many ways.

Your new secretary has complained about implied complaints, well I have a complaint. If you no longer wish for me to write for the Hughes News you could at least have the decency to let me know. I take offense to implied things just as much as you do, and it seems to me that after writing the Hughes News for over 2 years and through 4 secretaries the least the new E-board could do is inform me that my services would no longer be required. If you are going to censor me at least you could have the balls to tell me so. I never expected to be thanked for my efforts, but I think I have earned the right to say goodbye to all of the people who have read me over the years. But as it is, your handling of the situation has done nothing but made me angry. If you had said nothing allowed me my last issue and been done with it, no one would have said a thing. I would have graduated, and you probably wouldn’t have heard another word from me. You apparently hold me is such contempt that you couldn’t even give me that.

The new E-board claims that I’ve been cast out because I’m no longer a resident of Hughes Hall. They claim they are trying to build spirit inside of Hughes Hall by not allowing a member of the Hughes community to write for the Hughes News. How precisely do you define community? Apparently you define community by residence. I haven’t lived in Hughes Hall this year but only a fool would say I am not a member of that community. I have lived and spent extensive amount of time in Hughes Hall for three years now. Although I currently don’t actually live in Hughes Hall I can name at least three people right off of the top of my head who technically live in Hughes who spend less time there than I do. Yet they can write for the Hughes News assuming what they’re writing passes your censoring. I’ve been writing Lord Zen for most of the three years I’ve been a member of the Hughes community, and in that time my impression is that I have always entertained at least a significant portion of that community. Ironically it is in order to build this community that I have been cancelled. Last year the Hughes News was entered as the program of the year for Hughes Hall because it brought so many people together. I think you should re-examine your motives.

Let’s stop insulting the intelligence of Hughesites. I’ve been forbidden from writing as a form of censorship. The new E-board doesn’t posses the original view that used to dominate Hughes Hall, and so they stop one of the last visible remnant of that attitude. Let’s talk a little bit about that attitude. There was a time when Hughes Hall was the refuge of the strange, the home of the unconventional, and a place where lost children could temporarily find solace before wandering on. I remember movie nights that ran every night of the week they began at about 2am and went till dawn. These weren’t floor programs, they were not advertised, you just knew about them. These movie nights had more to do with community and spirit than any paper that gets people to write for it by promising credits towards floor of the month. I remember that damn Home Alone kid being burned in effigy. I remember people being tossed into a shower in celebration of a birthday. I’ve seen a video of a friend of mine spontaneously combusting in a lounge. There was an RA watching while this film was being made. Now you wouldn’t dare light a candle in a lounge much less a person.

These were the wild times, but among them and balancing them were the hall conferences. I mean the times when you found yourself sitting in the hall at 4am with 6+ other people deeply engaged in discussion. Discussions about the nature of life, or relationship theory 101, or who is this god person anyway and what does he want from me. Silly unimportant conversations that defined world views. For there are still a few out there who prefer to puzzle out how the world works for themselves, instead of blindly accepting societies pre-packaged view. Those late night talks built more community than any program I ever even heard of. Community can’t be bought with food it must be earned, like trust, with honest feelings.

But that is all past… Now Hughes has gone more mainstream. The silent trying to slip by the years without making waves or letting a thought filter through their heads. Blindly accepting the pre-packaged symbols. I’m sure the new Hughes News will serve them well.

But I’m down from my high horse now, I’m just upset that it had to end this way.

Sitting in front of my computer with a shot of vodka and a sliver of citrus, I would like to propose some toasts.

To the Vampiric Nymph (with a glass of warm blood) for caring and letting me care.

To the Lady of the Loft (with a glass of the nectar of the gods) for being kind enough to create me.

To Gita (with the finest glass of wine that can be found in this universe) for helping me through it all.

To Swampthing (with a strange concoction that someone left fermenting in the kitchen cabinet a little to long) for keeping true to the old guard.

To Kevin (with a Mountain Dew BigGulp) for late night talks ranging from logic and language to god and the supernatural.

To Lee (with a shot of tequila (with the worm)) for being a good friend and an able leader.

To Heather (with whatever she wants) because it’s Heather’s duck.

To Roger (with whatever he has lying around) and pre-renovation 5th floor for the insanity.

To the old 4th floor for welcoming me up.

To the new 4th floor for letting me come back.

To the old 2nd floor for being home.

Now that I’m good and drunk lets add the final toast to Mr. Edwin Holt Hughes… thanks for the place to stay for a while.

I will miss you all more than you can ever know. I wish I had another four years to spend wandering the halls. I can not express to you what it has meant to me. I only hope you find your self a new skilled god or goddess to do the job of leading you to the absurd so you can stop and have tea with it.

Sir High Lord Zen
Defender of Wilted Plastic Roses
Knight of the Ping Pong Table
Wandering God
Todd Kusterer